


half the time the world is ending

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, OT4: Scis and Spies, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 03:21:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14559726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: (truth is i am done pretending)Contains spoilers for Infinity War!





	half the time the world is ending

**Author's Note:**

> Again, contains Infinity War spoilers - don't read if you haven't watched. :)

One in sixteen.

Jemma knows the odds. There is a one in sixteen chance that all of them survived the culling. She thinks back to the last time she called Bobbi and Hunter, how they had all said I love you before hanging up but not imagined that it could be the last time. She hopes it wasn’t the last time, because today already sucks enough without them being gone. 

Fitz is beside her, and Jemma leans into the warmth of his body, trying to reassure herself that even if Bobbi and Hunter are gone, there is someone she loves left to lean on.

Jemma closes her eyes, trying not to think of the way Daisy was taken, or the way she had seen fear in Melinda May’s eyes for the first and last time as she disintegrated. Coulson had gone just a moment later, looking relieved. Deke is gone, too, but he didn’t even belong in this world or this time in the first place, so she wonders if it really counts. 

(Of course it counts, but Jemma is trying to comfort herself in any way possible.)

Fitz’s fingers curl into her forearm, and Jemma opens her eyes, turning to look at him. She knows she’s been holding the phone for too long, but she’s terrified. Jemma hates ignorance, but today she understands what _ignorance is bliss_ means. She would rather falsely believe that Bobbi and Hunter are alive than be faced with the cold reality that they are not. 

“Jemma, I can do it.” Fitz says, putting his other hand over hers. Her fingers begin to uncurl from the phone, so she can pass the burden to her husband, but at the last moment, she clenches her fist shut. She has to be the one to do this. Fitz has already been so hurt by everything that has happened – letting him be the one to discover their partners were gone would break him. It still might break him, Jemma considers, but she is clinging to that tiny fraction of hope, that this is the one out of sixteen where they all make it out alive.

She punches the number into the phone and puts it against her ear.

It rings, and rings, and rings. The burner phone Bobbi and Hunter have been using doesn’t have voicemail, so Jemma can stand there, forever, waiting for someone to pick up. Images flood her head of a cell phone sitting in a heap of ashes that used to be her lovers. Jemma is about to give up, to sink to her knees and cry because this is so _unfair_ , when she hears the clicking noise that indicates that someone has picked up the line.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end is just as cautious, fearing bad news as much as Jemma is.

“Come home.” She sobs, unable to hold it back. 

“Always.” 

The lines goes dead, and it’s only then that Jemma realizes she didn’t put any effort into identifying whether the voice was Bobbi or Hunter’s, and didn’t ask if they were both okay. She had just broken down at the fact that one of them was okay.

The phone clatters out of her hand and Jemma buries her face in Fitz’s chest. He’s crying, too. There’s a horrible mixture of anger and sadness and loss and relief that all smash together to create something unidentifiable. 

No one asks why their eyes are puffy and red when they return to the main control room in the Lighthouse. Everyone has been crying, because this is _awful_.

No one asks either why Fitz sits himself in front of the radar screens, eyes already peeled for an incoming vessel.

\---

With each passing day Jemma grows more and more worried. She is constantly on edge, and when, on the sixth day, Fitz lets out a shout, Jemma flies out of her seat, sprinting over to where he is sitting.

“There.” Fitz says, smashing his finger against the monitor. It’s very un-Fitz, to be so careless with technology, but he is just as strung-out from anxiety as she is, and Jemma doesn’t blame him. There’s a ping of an unidentified aircraft, and they both _know_. 

Fitz shouts that they’re not going to be launching an attack, and the remnants of the team are confused by the way both the scientists are shaking with nerves and a tad bit of excitement. 

The Lighthouse doesn’t have a hangar, but it doesn’t need one. The surrounding town is decimated, and the citizens that survived the purge have all evacuated, leaving many abandoned parking lots big enough for an aircraft to land. Jemma doesn’t know what to expect, but when she exits the Lighthouse and sees a helicopter circling the back lot of a McDonald’s, she runs towards it. 

Fitz runs beside her, and even though Jemma knows he can go faster than her (he’s been training, after all), he doesn’t pull ahead. By the time they reach the McDonald’s, the rotors of the helicopter have slowed considerably, but no one’s on the tarmac.

Just as Jemma is wondering if they’ve been played by someone, the door on the pilot’s side opens. Bobbi steps out. Jemma doesn’t think – just moves. Bobbi sweeps her into a hug, and Jemma’s legs hook around Bobbi’s waist as the blonde spins them both around. Jemma is absolutely breathless and it means that her first kiss with Bobbi is too short from lack of oxygen. Jemma kisses all over Bobbi’s face – her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, her eyelids, _everywhere_. Every kiss is a reassurance that Bobbi is alive. Bobbi is not gone. 

“Hunter.” Jemma wheezes out, because she still has not seen him and it is just now occurring to her that he _could_ be gone. 

“Beside us.” Bobbi answers. Jemma detaches herself from Bobbi and turns so she can see Lance. He’s holding Fitz, and all Jemma sees are white knuckles and tense cords of muscle. She can tell Hunter is afraid to let go, and Fitz is, too. Lance presses a kiss into Fitz’s pulse point, murmurs something into his ear, and then releases his death grip. 

As soon as Fitz steps back, Jemma launches herself at Hunter. He catches her easily, pulling her into a hug that’s just as tight as the one he was giving Fitz moments before. It hurts a little, but the good kind of hurt – the kind that reminds her that she is here, in this moment, with him. 

They are all here, Jemma thinks, and it sends a rush of giddiness through her. She knows she should still be upset, because so many people are still gone, but they beat the odds. One in sixteen, less than seven percent chance – but they did it. Or the universe did it, but Jemma doesn’t particularly care which, as long as they are together.

“Love you.” Lance whispers, his breath hot on the shell of her ear.

“Love you.” She agrees, pressing a soft kiss against the corner of his mouth. He lets go of her, and Jemma sees that Bobbi and Fitz are finishing their reunion, as well. The four of them gravitate together, not doing anything other than enjoying the proximity that they haven’t had for years. 

The world is still going to hell – is already hell, actually – but Jemma takes comfort in the fact that she won’t have to face it alone. 

“What the hell is going on here?” Mack asks. Jemma looks guiltily over at Fitz.

“Funny story, Mack.” Hunter says, stepping forward with his casual, cocky grin spread over his face. “Fitz and Jemma called me up saying that you were in need of more males on the base to help repopulate humanity now that half of us are gone, and I volunteered.” Jemma snorts at that, and Mack glares at her. 

“Actually.” Jemma says, now that she’s had time to think. “It’s more like Fitz and I are in love with Lance and Bobbi and we’d rather like to have them back now that the world is ending.”

Mack just shakes his head, but Jemma doesn’t care. She’s done pretending that she only loves one person when she loves three, especially when the end of humanity is rushing towards them. She wants to be with the people she loves.

So that’s what she does.

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Infinity War again last night, and with my newfound OT4 I just... had to write something else. Oops.


End file.
